In our train car there were 6 Argentinians and myself. All the locals were in substantially less comfortable cars. It was a very strange train experience. Considering how late we were getting started and the quality of things thus far in Bolivia, I foresaw a horrible train ride. Low and behold the seats reclined just enough for comfort and there was a large stack of dust covered blankets in case we got cold. I wouldn’t go as far as saying it was a really nice train. It was more the fact that my expectations were so incredibly low that I was pleasantly surprised. At one point an employee walked by and handed us ticket stubs to enjoy a snack in the dining car. WHAT?! A dining car? Seriously? So we precariously stepped from one car to the next (not up to safety regulations might I add) and found ourselves in a dining car straight from the 70’s. We were served sugary juice, coffee/tea, and crackers with jam. There was a dinner menu with dishes priced around 5 USD. I couldn’t stop laughing to myself. Here we had seriously stressed about what we were going to eat. Immediately after snack time we ordered a quinoa salad for me and a basal steak for Nico. Both were surprisingly good. Back in our car we did our best to not suck in dust as we huddled under one of the train blankets.
We arrived in Uyuni only four hours late at 5:00 am. It was bitter cold and I kept thinking how disastrous it would be if our hostel didn’t open the door for us. Our only option would have been to pay 2 Bolivianos to sit in a toilet stall at the train station. Fortunately, our knocks were quickly answered and we were ushered into the Oro Blanco Hostel. The people were friendly, the breakfast was good, but pretty much everything else missed the mark. They turned off the heating and Wi-Fi until 7:30 am… enough said. After two hours of sleep we were up and getting ready for our tour of the Uyuni Salt Flats. We signed up for a three day tour with the tour company Andes Salt Expeditions. In our jeep there were two Chileans, Gerardo and Caro, two Germans, Merlin and Andi, our driver, Bernando, and us. We really lucked out with our tour mates. They were all very fun and entertaining people.
The Uyuni Salt Flats are the largest salt flats in the world covering more than 10,500 square km. They contain a huge percentage of the world’s lithium reserves (important for electronic batteries) as well as borax, potassium, and magnesium. With their proximity to the Andes the flats’ average altitude is around 3,600 meters. What I found interesting was that the flats are really flat with only about a meter in surface difference. They are made up of 11 layers each of varying thickness from 2 to 10 meters. You can imagine how much salt there is! Roughly 25,000 tons of salt are mined each year.
We left Uyuni and made a quick stop at the train cemetery. There were two rows of rusting trains left behind from the 1800’s. One row used to connect Uyuni to Chile and the other to Argentina. I thought it was interesting how many of the train parts had the Carnegie logo. Next up were the salt flats. We stopped to check out salt mounds ready for transport, spent an hour taking an absurd amount of perspective photos, and had lunch in a hotel built entirely of salt. Outside of the hotel there was a monument in honor of the Dakar Rally of course made of salt. From 1978 to 2007 the Paris-Dakar off road endurance rally was raced from Paris, France to Dakar, Senegal. In 2008 the race was cancelled due to unrest in northern Africa. Since 2009, the race has been done in Argentina/Bolivia/Chile. The race goes through the salt flats and has brought a good amount of attention to the region.
In the middle of the salt flats there are several landmass “islands”. We stopped at Inca Huasi or Fish Island to check out the large cacti and to take in the views of seemingly never ending salt flats. Inca Huasi was a key resting place for the Incas as they traversed the flats. After the island we drove for some until we stopped to watch the sunset. As we waited for the sun to set we played salt baseball, competed to see who could throw salt farther, and unfortunately encouraged Bernando to play his horrible music even louder. It was an awesome sunset that left the sky pink, yellow, and purple. The night was spent in freezing temperatures in an interestingly constructed salt hotel.
We woke up early and split a breakfast for two people between the six of us. It is impressive how cheap tour companies can be. Eggs aren’t that expensive people! We proceeded to pass through the Chuguana desert. As we masticated coca leaves, we passed several extinct volcanoes and the semi active Ollague. It was while taking photos of Ollague that my struggle with altitude sickness peaked. I was babbling (not my normal chatter, but actual incoherent words) a bit and losing my footing. Nico instantly grabbed my shoulders and asked if I was going to pass out. I instantly slumped down into a seated position and was out for a moment. Gerardo held up my feet and Nico held my head. It really scared me because I couldn’t control my breathing, it was very erratic and my heart was pumping a mile a minute. We sat for a while and I did my best to breathe deeply. Nico got into a calm confrontation with our guide because the tour company had advertised that it provided oxygen service if necessary. Of course being in Bolivia, there was no oxygen. The guide actually laughed at Nico because in his mind the idea of tour companies carrying oxygen with them was ridiculous. Nico stopped several other jeeps to ask for oxygen and came up with nothing. Even the park rangers at the head office claimed their oxygen tanks were out for refiling. Right… So, I was forced to remain in the jeep for the rest of the day. Nico deserves credit because he dealt with the situation well and did a great job helping me.
One of the coolest parts about the Chuguana desert is the diversity of bizarre species that live there. The most prevalent mammals were the vicuña, the llama, and the guanaco. We saw large herds of vicuña milling about feeding. We passed several high altitude lagoons that are unique because of the three species of flamingos that live in them. Against instructions I got out of the jeep for a few minutes to take pictures along the lagoon’s edge. I swear I heard a flamingo fart and I was quite tickled. Not far from the lagoon we stopped to have lunch beneath a large rock outcropping. These rocks also provided us some wildlife entertainment by means of a strange rabbit like species called, viscacha. They were very curious and very interested in our food. After eating we made an odd stop at the Chilean border. There didn’t seem to be any reason to the stop other than for the driver to pee. There was a large group of locals sitting at plastic tables consuming some delicious looking pasta presumably waiting to cross. To our chagrin the Germans bought the last of the pasta and gleefully ate it in our faces.
We continued our visit stopping in the desert of Siloli to see the “tree of rock”. Not worth the stop in my opinion, but the massive rock formations did provide enough cover for urination to take place. For the record males and their longer urethras have a huge advantage on a trip like this. The last stop of the day was on the shores of the oddly red colored Laguna Colorada. In the middle of the lagoon there were large chunks of borax. I asked the use of borax several times and never really got an answer. My research provided the answer that borax is used for metallurgy, detergents, fiberglass, cosmetics, enamel glazes, etc.
Our lodging for the evening was way more basic than the previous night. All six of us shared a room and spent the night shivering. The Chileans and I struggled to breathe and barely slept a wink. One huge plus to being out in the middle of nowhere was that the stars were out of this world (literally). As our fingers froze we all stood in amazement of the stunning constellations and how visible they were.
Our last day started at 4:30 am. Remembering breakfast from the previous day, we waited until the other groups had abandoned their tables and scooped up their left-overs. We like food what can I say. We climbed to 5,000 meters to visit the Sol de Mañana geysers. The plums of sulfur were illuminated by the morning light and felt other worldly. Next up was a really lame thirty minute stop at a natural hot spring. None of us opted to pay to sit in the ridiculously small hot spring and instead put our feet in the free runoff. Last but not least we visited the brilliantly green colored Laguna Verde and Volcan Licancabur. At this point we dropped off Gerardo and Caro at the Chilean border for their transfer to San Pedro de Atacama and the rest of us settled in for the seven hour drive back to Uyuni.
Other than our scruples with the tour company and my serious altitude issues, the tour was a highlight of the trip thus far. The Germans made us laugh, the Chileans were incredibly enjoyable to chat with, and Bernando was just a very highly energized strange man. If you ever get the chance, come check out the beautiful landscapes of the Uyuni Salt Flats. May you breathe easily and be surrounded by a fun tour group.
We arrived in Uyuni only four hours late at 5:00 am. It was bitter cold and I kept thinking how disastrous it would be if our hostel didn’t open the door for us. Our only option would have been to pay 2 Bolivianos to sit in a toilet stall at the train station. Fortunately, our knocks were quickly answered and we were ushered into the Oro Blanco Hostel. The people were friendly, the breakfast was good, but pretty much everything else missed the mark. They turned off the heating and Wi-Fi until 7:30 am… enough said. After two hours of sleep we were up and getting ready for our tour of the Uyuni Salt Flats. We signed up for a three day tour with the tour company Andes Salt Expeditions. In our jeep there were two Chileans, Gerardo and Caro, two Germans, Merlin and Andi, our driver, Bernando, and us. We really lucked out with our tour mates. They were all very fun and entertaining people.
The Uyuni Salt Flats are the largest salt flats in the world covering more than 10,500 square km. They contain a huge percentage of the world’s lithium reserves (important for electronic batteries) as well as borax, potassium, and magnesium. With their proximity to the Andes the flats’ average altitude is around 3,600 meters. What I found interesting was that the flats are really flat with only about a meter in surface difference. They are made up of 11 layers each of varying thickness from 2 to 10 meters. You can imagine how much salt there is! Roughly 25,000 tons of salt are mined each year.
We left Uyuni and made a quick stop at the train cemetery. There were two rows of rusting trains left behind from the 1800’s. One row used to connect Uyuni to Chile and the other to Argentina. I thought it was interesting how many of the train parts had the Carnegie logo. Next up were the salt flats. We stopped to check out salt mounds ready for transport, spent an hour taking an absurd amount of perspective photos, and had lunch in a hotel built entirely of salt. Outside of the hotel there was a monument in honor of the Dakar Rally of course made of salt. From 1978 to 2007 the Paris-Dakar off road endurance rally was raced from Paris, France to Dakar, Senegal. In 2008 the race was cancelled due to unrest in northern Africa. Since 2009, the race has been done in Argentina/Bolivia/Chile. The race goes through the salt flats and has brought a good amount of attention to the region.
In the middle of the salt flats there are several landmass “islands”. We stopped at Inca Huasi or Fish Island to check out the large cacti and to take in the views of seemingly never ending salt flats. Inca Huasi was a key resting place for the Incas as they traversed the flats. After the island we drove for some until we stopped to watch the sunset. As we waited for the sun to set we played salt baseball, competed to see who could throw salt farther, and unfortunately encouraged Bernando to play his horrible music even louder. It was an awesome sunset that left the sky pink, yellow, and purple. The night was spent in freezing temperatures in an interestingly constructed salt hotel.
We woke up early and split a breakfast for two people between the six of us. It is impressive how cheap tour companies can be. Eggs aren’t that expensive people! We proceeded to pass through the Chuguana desert. As we masticated coca leaves, we passed several extinct volcanoes and the semi active Ollague. It was while taking photos of Ollague that my struggle with altitude sickness peaked. I was babbling (not my normal chatter, but actual incoherent words) a bit and losing my footing. Nico instantly grabbed my shoulders and asked if I was going to pass out. I instantly slumped down into a seated position and was out for a moment. Gerardo held up my feet and Nico held my head. It really scared me because I couldn’t control my breathing, it was very erratic and my heart was pumping a mile a minute. We sat for a while and I did my best to breathe deeply. Nico got into a calm confrontation with our guide because the tour company had advertised that it provided oxygen service if necessary. Of course being in Bolivia, there was no oxygen. The guide actually laughed at Nico because in his mind the idea of tour companies carrying oxygen with them was ridiculous. Nico stopped several other jeeps to ask for oxygen and came up with nothing. Even the park rangers at the head office claimed their oxygen tanks were out for refiling. Right… So, I was forced to remain in the jeep for the rest of the day. Nico deserves credit because he dealt with the situation well and did a great job helping me.
One of the coolest parts about the Chuguana desert is the diversity of bizarre species that live there. The most prevalent mammals were the vicuña, the llama, and the guanaco. We saw large herds of vicuña milling about feeding. We passed several high altitude lagoons that are unique because of the three species of flamingos that live in them. Against instructions I got out of the jeep for a few minutes to take pictures along the lagoon’s edge. I swear I heard a flamingo fart and I was quite tickled. Not far from the lagoon we stopped to have lunch beneath a large rock outcropping. These rocks also provided us some wildlife entertainment by means of a strange rabbit like species called, viscacha. They were very curious and very interested in our food. After eating we made an odd stop at the Chilean border. There didn’t seem to be any reason to the stop other than for the driver to pee. There was a large group of locals sitting at plastic tables consuming some delicious looking pasta presumably waiting to cross. To our chagrin the Germans bought the last of the pasta and gleefully ate it in our faces.
We continued our visit stopping in the desert of Siloli to see the “tree of rock”. Not worth the stop in my opinion, but the massive rock formations did provide enough cover for urination to take place. For the record males and their longer urethras have a huge advantage on a trip like this. The last stop of the day was on the shores of the oddly red colored Laguna Colorada. In the middle of the lagoon there were large chunks of borax. I asked the use of borax several times and never really got an answer. My research provided the answer that borax is used for metallurgy, detergents, fiberglass, cosmetics, enamel glazes, etc.
Our lodging for the evening was way more basic than the previous night. All six of us shared a room and spent the night shivering. The Chileans and I struggled to breathe and barely slept a wink. One huge plus to being out in the middle of nowhere was that the stars were out of this world (literally). As our fingers froze we all stood in amazement of the stunning constellations and how visible they were.
Our last day started at 4:30 am. Remembering breakfast from the previous day, we waited until the other groups had abandoned their tables and scooped up their left-overs. We like food what can I say. We climbed to 5,000 meters to visit the Sol de Mañana geysers. The plums of sulfur were illuminated by the morning light and felt other worldly. Next up was a really lame thirty minute stop at a natural hot spring. None of us opted to pay to sit in the ridiculously small hot spring and instead put our feet in the free runoff. Last but not least we visited the brilliantly green colored Laguna Verde and Volcan Licancabur. At this point we dropped off Gerardo and Caro at the Chilean border for their transfer to San Pedro de Atacama and the rest of us settled in for the seven hour drive back to Uyuni.
Other than our scruples with the tour company and my serious altitude issues, the tour was a highlight of the trip thus far. The Germans made us laugh, the Chileans were incredibly enjoyable to chat with, and Bernando was just a very highly energized strange man. If you ever get the chance, come check out the beautiful landscapes of the Uyuni Salt Flats. May you breathe easily and be surrounded by a fun tour group.
